Spain reopens old wounds as it tries to bury Franco's ghost

Spain's Socialist Government is facing a stand-off with hardline supporters of Generalissimo Francisco Franco over a new law that will ban public shows of support for the late dictator.

The law, which comes into force next month, will stop Franco's supporters from staging their annual homage to El Caudillo (the Leader) at his mausoleum at The Valley of the Fallen, a huge shrine built by thousands of Republican prisoners outside Madrid.

With arms raised in fascist salutes, his dwindling band of followers have gathered there every year to mark the anniversary of his death on November 20, 1975.

This year, for the first time, police will have powers to stop them from paying homage to their idol, whom historians claim caused the death of thousands of Leftists, unionists, homosexuals and intellectuals during his 36-year dictatorship.

They may also have to arrest Franco's daughter, Carmen Franco y Polo, who traditionally leads the sombre display of loyalty to a man otherwise almost universally reviled in modern Spain.

The Law of Historical Memory is supposed to grant justice for Franco's victims more than 30 years after his death. It was the inspiration of Spain's Socialist prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who infuriated Britain and the United States when he withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq two years ago.

Zapatero, whose own grandfather was shot by a Francoist firing squad in the Civil War, promised voters before the last elections that his administration would be the first Spanish government to find justice for the dictator's victims.

Among his pledges have been a scheme to compensate political prisoners who worked in labour battalions or for pro-Franco businessmen. Some British members of the International Brigades, the Left-wing volunteers who travelled to fight Franco, will also be allowed to apply for Spanish nationality, even though only a few survive.

But despite its best intentions, the proposed package of measures has proved highly controversial, angering both the Right and Left alike.

Critics on the political Right claim it is just a token effort to rewrite history and will stir up wounds that they say were dealt with during Spain's transition to democracy. Groups representing Franco's victims, meanwhile, accuse the government of watering down its pledges.

They had hoped that judicial decisions made during the dictatorship would be automatically reversed. But the law has side-stepped the issue, setting up instead a commission to consider each case individually.

Felix Pérez, the vice-president of the National Francisco Foundation, which leads the homage to the dictator, said banning demonstrations glorifying Franco would make no difference. "This law will try to stop Spaniards learning about their true history. How can that be right?" he said.

"They will try to stop us showing what a great man did for this country and yet they call this a democracy? They will not stop us from paying our respects on November 20."

The Foundation, which still receives government funding for its archives, has launched seven legal appeals against government moves to pull down statues of Franco around Spain.

The state initiated these as a prelude to the new law with the intention of eventually getting rid of all the numerous memorials that can be found in town squares across the country.

Spain's opposition conservative Popular Party has condemned the law as a way of reviving old conflicts. Mariano Rajoy, the Popular Party leader, said: "The vast majority of Spaniards do not want to talk about Franco. The government is set on creating problems and generating tension."

Volunteers have dug up nearly 500 mass graves in Spain and claim that up to 30,000 victims of the Franco regime remain in them.

For Emilio Silva, a campaigner who dug up the grave of his grandfather six years ago, the law has not gone far enough. "It is the government that should be exhuming the people shot by Franco, not us volunteers," he said. "This law does nothing for the thousands murdered during those years."

The deputy prime minister, María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, denied accusations that the government was trying to whitewash Spain's political past. "This is not a case of the government rewriting history," he said. "That job is for historians."